NOTE: If you didn't get a copy of
the poem "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" in class, you
could find your own copy in the library or elsewhere, in many
books that contain selections of Eliot's poetry.

1. Many of Eliots poems do not contain traditional
stanza structures and rhyme schemes. The images seem
fragmented, or disjointed. Look carefully for patterns
created by rhymes, other sounds, repetitions, and
characteristics that the strange sequences of images may have
in common.

2. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock may be
understood as a stream of consciousness passing through the
mind of Prufrock. The you and I of line 1 may be
different aspects of his personality. Or perhaps the you
and I is parallel to Guido who speaks the epigraph and
Dante to whom he tells the story that resulted in his
damnationhence, you is the reader and
I is Prufrock. In either case the poem is an
inner monologue. Eliot himself said the you was
an unidentified male companion (which would make the poem a
dramatic monologue), but most readers think of it as
Prufrock's public self, which can be differentiated from the
sensitive, thinking inward I. The poem is
disjointed because it proceeds by psychological rather than
logical stages. Which interpretation of the you
and I seems most helpful to you?

3. Apparently, Prufrock is on his way to a tea and is
pondering his relationship with a certain woman. What does he
seem to be hesitating about in this relationship? What
reactions does he expect to encounter from women?

4. To what social class does Prufrock belong? How does
Prufrock respond to the attitudes and values of his class?
Does he change in the course of the poem?

5. What else can you tell about Prufrock as a person and
about his view of himself? What does his full name suggest
about him? What is he afraid of? What makes his life trivial
or meaningless?

6. Prufrock uses two seemingly opposite strategies in his
monologue: the trivializing of what is important (I
have measured out my life with coffee spoons) and
absurd overstatements (Do I dare/Disturb the universe?).
How does this fact help define his personality?

7. How is description, especially of the cityscape, used in
Prufrock? What unusual images are used to depict
the streets? How do the images from the city streets compare
to those in Rhapsody on a Windy Night, Preludes,
and The Burial of the Dead?

8. Eliot often uses expressionist imagery, in
which objects are projections of psychological states. The
image of the evening as an etherized patient is an example.
Find others in these poems.

9. Line 92 of Prufrock provides an allusion to
Marvell's seventeenth-century poem To His Coy Mistress
(ll. 41-42). What connections are there between the two poems
regarding the themes of love and time?

10. In l. 82 Prufrock compares himself to the beheaded John
the Baptist. Is he ridiculing himself or the Bible? What is
the effect of the Biblical allusions in the poem?

11. Is Prufrock an emotional freak or does he embody problems
many of us have?

12. What might the song of the mermaids (l. 124) signify, and
why does Prufrock think they will not sing to him (l. 125)?
What do the other references to heroic or historical figures
reveal about Prufrock's view of himself?

13. Consider the last line of Prufrock. Does this
mean that we unfortunately have to settle for real women
instead of sex-fantasy mermaids, or can the line be read more
positively?

14. How do the views of city life, time, and memory compare
in Prufrock, Rhapsody on a Windy Night,
Preludes, and The Burial of the Dead?

15. What types of images show that people are dehumanized in
modern life, and suggest that inanimate objects are alive?

16. How do Eliot's innovations in the uses of images,
language, and poetic form help convey his views on modern
society?

17. In The Hippopotamus, why does each stanza
contain two lines on the hippopotamus and two lines on the
Church?

18. Why did Eliot choose the hippo to represent flesh
and blood? Does this poem contain a theme about the
corruption of human society similar to the view in other
works which compare humans to animals?

19. What criticisms of the Church are implied in The
Hippopotamus? Does the view of the Church change from
the beginning to the end of the poem, or is there just a
difference in the degree of irony in different stanzas?

20. Why does the potomus sprout wings and
fly away while the True Church remains below in the beast's
native habitat (the savannas or tropical grasslands and the
mists from the rivers and marshes the hippo inhabits)?

21. Epigraph from Saint Ignatius' third epistle to the
Traillians: And likewise let all the deacons be
reverenced, as commanded by Jesus Christ; and let the bishop
be reverenced, as Jesus Christ, the living son of the Father;
also let the presbyters be reverenced, as the council of God
and the assembly of the apostles. Without these there can be
no church; of these things I persuade you as I can.
What is the effect of including this excerpt from a sacred
Latin epistle in a satiric poem on the True Church?

22. Eliot associated religion with water. What images in
The Hippopotamus and other poems reflect this
association? Are there images that suggest that civilization
lacks water (religion)?

23. What is the effect of the rhyme scheme and rhythm of
The Hippopotamus and Sweeney Among the
Nightingales? How do the satiric effects compare in
these and other poems?

24. How does Sweeney compare to the type of men in other
poems, such as Prufrock?

25. What is the effect of the animal images in Sweeney?
How do the allusions to heroic and tragic ancient myths
affect our view of Sweeney sprawling with a person on his
lap?

26. How do the images of female figures compare in Rhapsody,
Preludes, Prufrock, Sweeney,
and The Burial of the Dead?